


Love Hurts

by goth_on_ham



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goth_on_ham/pseuds/goth_on_ham
Summary: “We don’t usually house prisoners together, but in your case… We’ll make an exception.”Oswald and Ed are put in the same cage.





	Love Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is short, but I wanted to write something before 3x19 came out with Oswald and Ed in the same cage, battered and bloody and angry but also in love. I couldn't stop myself.

_“We don’t usually house prisoners together, but in your case… We’ll make an exception.”_

Oswald didn’t give Ed time to think, he didn’t give _himself_ time to think. He just pounced on the other man. Brought him crashing to the ground with a brutal sounding thud. Had he knocked his head? Oswald didn’t care.

He didn’t say anything, he just screamed. He struck Ed hard across the face and made his glasses fly off. He hit him again and again until his knuckles hurt. When he couldn’t hit him any more, he gripped the front of his grey jumpsuit and pulled him up, so that their faces were mere inches apart. 

“You betrayed me, you tried to _kill_ me.” He hissed, making sure that every ounce of venom that he had felt towards Ed since he had woken up poured into his words. He was pleased when they sounded like they were practically dripping with resentment. “But you should have known, old friend, that ‘the Penguin’ isn’t so easy to kill.”

Ed didn’t answer him, and that annoyed Oswald more. He shook him a bit, and Ed let out a soft groan of pain, but he was otherwise silent. His dark brown eyes glistened, and Oswald flattered himself that the wetness might be from fear. 

‘Good.’ He thought. 

But it wasn’t fear.

“You’re alive.” A disconcertingly giddy laugh spilled from Ed’s lips, lips that were spilling blood as well as laughter. “You’re _real.”_

“Of course I’m real. What else would I be?” The smaller man snapped back, more unsettled by Ed’s laughter than he wanted to be. 

Ed smiled, as if he couldn’t see the anger that Oswald was sure was twisting his face into something bitter and hideous. “I missed you.”

Oswald struck him across the face again. 

The knuckle of his left hand throbbed in protest.

“Don’t- Don’t you dare say that to me.” He growled, but Ed just kept smiling. Oswald might have hit him again, but before he could, Ed’s larger hands had wrapped around his bony wrists. They held on tight. 

“Get your hands off-“

“Oswald. It’s so good to see you.” Ed’s words were soft, like a breath. Purple bruises were already starting to appear on his face. Ugly swelling too. Oswald felt himself shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was just out of anger. “I missed you.”

Oswald tried to pull his wrists away, but Ed held firm.

“I told you to let me go.”

“Will you kill me if I do?”

“I will. Slowly.” 

Ed snorted. Oswald’s temper flared up again at that. 

“I’m going to kill you.” He repeated, and he hated how his voice sounded when he said it. He sounded weak. 

“If I told you that I love you, would that change anything?” 

Ed was looking right at him, his eyes still wet, and when he said that, Oswald felt his own eyes become misted. 

“What?”

“Would it?”

“You’re just trying to manipulate me again.”

“Probably. Maybe. I don’t really know. That’s what I do. But I do mean it all the same.”

Oswald felt Ed’s hands loosen around his wrists, and despite part of him yelling at him, telling him to just kill this lanky bastard beneath him, he didn’t. He didn’t move. He stayed straddling Ed, but no longer hitting him, no longer hurting him.

“I love you.” 

Oswald had thought he wanted him dead.

Why should it matter if Ed loved him? He didn’t love _him_ anymore. 

“Do you still love me?”

Oswald didn’t know.

“Oswald?”

Oswald knew that he should want him dead. 

“Oswald, you’re hurting me.”

Oswald _didn’t_ want him dead.

“Oswald, could you move a-“

Oswald moved off of him. Ed thanked him. Oswald put a hand over his face, and swore underneath his breath. 

This isn’t what he had wanted. He was captured. Caged like some sort of beast, but he couldn’t even kill the man he’d gotten himself captured for. It was pathetic.

Ed was sitting across from him now, bloodied and bruised and probably in terrible pain and without his glasses. But he had a curious look on his face. It was fond. Relieved. He reached out and cupped Oswald’s face with his hand, and Oswald couldn’t keep himself from leaning into the warm palm.

“How long have they kept you here?” He asked, his eyes closing over. It was easier to accept this if he didn’t have to see Ed. If he could just feel him, he could pretend this was happening somewhere else. He could pretend he hadn’t hated Ed enough to beat him until his knuckles ached.

“I’m not sure. There are no windows, no clocks. I would guess about a week.” Ed’s thumb stroked his cheek and Oswald heard him shuffle a little closer to him. 

“I saw you on TV.” Oswald sighed. It was ridiculous, to talk like this now. Oswald knew that, but he did it anyway.

“What did you think?” Ed sounded genuinely curious. He leaned in, and Oswald felt his breath on his neck before he felt his lips on it. 

He gasped. 

“You don’t… Suit the hat…” Oswald whimpered, his hands gripped onto Ed’s shoulders as he felt the hot wetness of Ed’s tongue run over his cold, dry skin. “Oh God…”

He stopped talking then, apart from the odd moaned expletive here and there, and he opened his eyes again.

Ed unbuttoned more of his jumpsuit and pushed him down onto the ground. Oswald let him. He couldn’t bring himself to stop him.

When Ed began to kiss down the newly exposed skin of his chest, his stomach, Oswald felt himself begin to cry. 

“What’s wrong?” Ed asked, looking up at him, his face an impressive range of pink and purple and pale thanks to Oswald’s fists. 

“We’re trapped here.” Oswald mumbled, because he couldn’t make his voice go any louder than that. Not without sounding ridiculous anyway. “We’ll probably die here.”

“We’re together now. Nothing can stop us.” Ed replied, and he sounded so sincere that Oswald believed him.

Ed kissed him again, just below the scar that the bullet had left, and Oswald’s back arched, his head spun. Ed was doing more to him than he had ever dared let anyone before, and Ed had _killed_ him. It didn’t make sense. But then again, love didn’t make sense.


End file.
